In a cable television/services (CATV) system, service providers oftentimes provide customers with a device (e.g., set-top box) by which the customer may receive digital and analog video programming and digital and analog data, and by which a customer may input data to the CATV system (e.g., interactive television services). A service provider may have millions of devices in the field, wherein some devices may have been deployed for over ten years and may be limited in memory and capability.
As new and more advanced applications become available for providing useful functionality to customers/users, a problem surfaces because older or so-called legacy set-top boxes or other client-side computing devices for providing application functionality and/or content to the end user may not have memory capacity or processing capability for handling the new and more advanced applications. Cable services providers are faced with costly upgrades to or physical replacement of deployed devices, or customers simply do not get the benefit of the new and more advanced software applications. Thus, a need exists for providing new and more advanced software application functionality and associated content via deployed older or legacy devices.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present invention has been made.